The second half of the concert opened with Black Bend by ASO Composer of the Year Dan Visconti, a surprisingly charming work in which the composer and the musicians morph more or less amorphous night sounds of nature into a blues band careening off the edge of a precipice.
—Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Eric E. Harrison (January 2016) full review
American chamber orchestra Inscape’s second CD features varied, arresting, original music…Dan Visconti’s Black Bend is a highly persuasive, ghost-addicted blues, six minutes long, with a wonderful fiddle solo haunted by insinuating, expressive winds.
—Gramophone, Laurence Vittes (April 2015) full review
Dan Visconti’s Black Bend, written for Sybarite5, shared a sleek bluesy tint…vaporous with its delicate slides, pizzicato accents and some marvelous violin acrobatics tossed off with light abandon by Sarah Whitney.
These guys are entertainers to the core. But their music-making was serious and expert, and their performance was as compelling as any I’ve enjoyed in a long time.
—The Washington Post, Joan Reinthaler (April 2015) full review
[Inscape Chamber Orchestra’s CD release] American Aggregate is distinctly American in tone, even when the internal tones clash; the country is too large to be defined by a single collection of chords…Dan Visconti‘s purposely foreboding “Black Bend” [is] based on a blues legend; ironically, when the actual blues emerge from the song, the shadows fade. But this is the manner of all blues: songs played in empathy, intended to bring solace and perhaps even cheer.
Inscape’s last album, Sprung Rhythm, was nominated for a Grammy in the category of Surround Sound. The new album seeks to match or top that honor with a superlative Blu-Ray mix. But even the CD is clear and resonant. It would be a shame for the Grammies to stop there; we’re pulling for an award in the Best Chamber or Best Contemporary Classical category this year.
—A Closer Listen, Richard Allen (Septembery 2014) full review
In a program of serial high points, there were too many to mention…Dan Visconti’s bluesy evocation of a train wreck (Black Bend) being a particular standout. An intriguing and hugely enjoyable evening in every way — and a standout in the Washington Performing Arts Society’s fine winter season.
—The Washington Post, Stephen Brookes (February 2014) full review
As on each concert, there was a contemporary work; a seven-minute exploratory sonic landscape which merges into blues called Black Bend by Dan Visconti, a young composer who has just been awarded the Rome Prize for his music. Depicting a train derailment and the haunting sounds of ghosts, the orchestra railed with glissandi and moans, and a blues beat, all of which quickly disintegrated. The music was refreshingly different.
—Albany Times-Union, Priscilla McLean (January 2014) full review
Mischa Santora and the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra opened the concert – just in time for Halloween – with American composer Dan Visconti’s Black Bend (2003), a gritty, blues-invested tone poem evoking the ghostly cries of victims of a railroad bridge collapse over the Cuyahoga River.
—Cincinnati Enquirer, Mary Ellyn Hutton (October 2013) full review
[Aeolus Quartet] violinists Tavani and Shapiro audibly relished the nature and train-whistle effects in Black Bend, Visconti’s evocation of a famous train wreck on a river bend in northern Ohio. Black Bend, which appears to exist in string quartet, quintet and orchestra versions, is a bluesy delight clearly indebted to country-bluegrass fiddling – the whistle effects recall Lester Flatt’s in the Flatt & Scruggs rendition of “The Wreck of the Old 97. Visconti’s 7-minute piece is one of the finest examples of folksy classicism this side of Peter Schickele.
—Virginia Classical Music Blog, Clarke Bustard (October 2013) full review
And then Cultures in Harmony presented a Dan Visconti composition [Black Bend]. It was a delight to lend an ear to. The effect of the approaching and receding train (as told by Peter Myers) was extraordinary. The audience received it with thunderous applause.
—Dawn Newspaper (Pakistan), Peerzada Salman (August 2012) full review
Dan Visconti’s Black Bend was inspired by a story he heard from an old man rowing a canoe on a river. The composition was bleak and sparse to begin with, but picked up when the 12-bar blues kicked in.
—International Herald Tribune, Ali Haider Habib (August 2012)
The CD opens with Black Bend (2003) by Dan Visconti, and the Aeolus Quartet did extremely well to put this track first. It begins with a range of sounds and melodic snippets that are evocative of a hot and humid summer day, and imitations of swarming hordes of gnats, mosquitoes, and/or other nasty things with wings also make their way into this long, fiddle-inspired introduction. Ah, but there are hints at something more to come, and before long a full-blown 12-bar blues section takes over. Visconti does a marvelous job of making this sound completely idiomatic to strings, while also making the blues feel completely at home in a 21st century concert hall. Aeolus gives a marvelous performance, building the energy to an absolutely frenetic level, and I challenge anyone to not smile and tap their feet as they listen. This track is the equivalent of the lead-off batter hitting a grand slam, or, for those who don’t follow baseball or may live in a country where it is not played, it’s damn good fun.
—I Care If You Listen, Andrew Lee (May 2012) full review
Dan Visconti’s Black Bend begins with longing, gestural wails accompanied by the pizz. and pop of a lazy river. Stabs and runs fight for space, as abbreviated melodies push their way through a mosquito texture of sixteenth notes. Seemingly out of nowhere, a blues bar opens up “just around the bend,” complete with chromatic strolls to IV and back again. Guitar riffs straight out of the Robert Johnson songbook play out over pizzicato parts in the cello that nod to their string bass roots. A few choruses in, violinists Nicholas Tavani and Rachel Shapiro do their best “Devil’s Crossroad,” battling in the upper register as the violist Gregory Luce and cellist Alan Richardson trade in their bass lines for some new chordal duds. The final moments of this 12-bar blues section play no differently than the frozen time at the end of any blues tune, tremolo chords and flying riffs; everybody rocking out so much that you can almost see the cellist give the final downbeat, its only lacking elements the bass drum, cymbal hit, and leap from the drum riser that typically wraps this sort of thing up. Beyond that, the piece flows away, decelerating with just the slightest reference to the opening as the river flows around another bend.
—NewMusicBox, Andrew Sigler (March 2012) full review
Dan Visconti’s Black Bend (2003), for string quintet, closed the concert with a quirky evocation of a jazz jam in which the viola, cello and bass create a rich fabric and a steady rhythmic bed against which the two violins (played with energy and spirit by Curtis Macomber and Miranda Cuckson) spin out dueling, bluesy solo lines.
—The New York Times, Allan Kozinn (August 2011) full review
Antonio Stradivari’s instruments have been venerated, played in concert and left in taxicabs by some of the world’s greatest musicians. On Saturday night, 273 years to the day after Stradivari’s death, some of them were put in the hands of a young group of string players for the Library of Congress’s annual Stradivarius concert, a tradition that’s continued since 1936, shortly after Gertrude Clarke Whittall presented the library with five Strads to call its own.
Sybarite5, the young string quintet thus honored, represented another tradition as well. Like the Kronos Quartet, the pioneering granddaddy of contemporary chamber ensembles, and the many groups it inspired, Sybarite5 is a group that aims to play both contemporary and classical works with equal ability—their program juxtaposed Mozart with music by the indie band Radiohead.
The bridge between the old and the rock, and thus, in a way, the meat of the program, was two works written by young composers for Sybarite5…Both fused different musical vernaculars in a melting-pot style that has become a lingua franca for composers under 40. D.C. resident Dan Visconti’s Black Bend [was] atmospheric and predominantly bluesy. This is the art-music take on popular American styles, and it was counterbalanced by two Piazzolla tangos at the end of the program.
—The Washington Post, Anne Midgette (December 2010) full review
With technique that approached impeccable, the five members of Sybarite5 showed off their love and mastery of a variety of 20th century music (and beyond), from Barber and Piazzolla to Led Zeppelin and Radiohead. The best moments, though, came in the new works crafted specifically for this type of group… the evening really took off with a piece written for the ensemble, Black Bend by Dan Visconti. It started modernistically, showing off violinist Sarah Whitney’s ability to draw emotion out of squeaks and clawing sounds, then morphed into a blues shuffle underlying coruscating near-chaos punctuated with dabs of humor. This was one of a number of passages during the concert in which the quintet pulled from its strings the coming-from-everywhere sound of a larger group.
—Blogcritics.org, Jon Sobel (June 2010) full review
Dan Visconti’s Black Bend is a fascinating exercise in ways to explore the far reaches of customary tonality, bringing forth country music inflections in a gripping series of scorching riffs before the sly joke of a false ending.
—Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Richard Storm (May 2010)
Contemporary American composer Dan Visconti’s Black Bend likewise borrowed, it appeared, from country music. Visconti took his material, disassembled it, turned it around and looked at it from all sides — just as Ravel did in La Valse.
—Allentown Morning Call, Philip A. Metzger (August 2009)
Nakahara opened the concert with Dan Visconti’s Black Bend. It’s a musical train wreck, literally, an orchestral onomatopoeia that includes screeching brakes, collapsing bridge, falling timbers, calming insect sounds before and after a bluesy violin improvisatory figure.
—The State (October 2008)
The program began with a wily sonic entertainment by a musician just 25. Like so many of his contemporaries, he scorns the border between classical and pop. His bluesy Black Bend, first heard here in December, is a savory stew of found sounds—insects, train whistles, the clickety-clack of steel on steel—seasoned with improvisatory elements and finished with attitude. Originally for string quartet, it sounded completely at home in its orchestral dress. The performance rocked.
—Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Larry Fuchsberg (2007)
Dan Visconti also introduced his Black Bend, inspired by tales of a disastrous train wreck in Ohio. This was one of the evening’s finest and most powerful pieces, distinguished by a slow build, like a train gaining steam, and a bluesy bass line.
—The Spokesman-Review, Jim Kershner (October 2007)
[Black Bend] was fun and short, and didn’t come larded with the pretensions of the other pieces.
—The Advocate Weekly, Stephen Dankner (2005)
Visconti’s writing was both mature and youthful, bristling with exhilarating musical ideas and a powerfully crafted lyricism. The performance rocked, and the piece [Black Bend] made a strong impact.
—Cleveland Plain Dealer, Wilma Salisbury (2003)